Death Spiral (20 page)

“Okay, fine, say you're right. How could I find out more about that adenovirus thing?”

“Well, there's the GenBank database,” she says after what seems like forever. “It might be possible to look for adenovirus vectors and see if there's a specific modification to the virus that's used for gene therapy, but—” She stops suddenly. I can practically hear the thoughts whirring around inside her head. I don't need words to know what's coming next. “Look Faith, this is way out of my league. I have no idea what happened to your mother, and frankly right now investigating this is beyond my capability. Maybe it
was
a spontaneous mutation. Just because it's not in the literature doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Diseases mutate and change. Or maybe there's some other explanation. I don't know, but right now this is more of a scientific problem than I can handle. We can get together after my tenure review and the conference, but until then, I just don't have the time.”

“Well who does have the time then?”

She sighs. “I don't know. Maybe Dr. Glass at PluraGen. He knows more about IPF than I do. I'm sorry, Faith. Really, I am.”

“Okay,” I say, and thank Dr. Monroe for all she's done to help me. She apologizes again for not being able to do more, promises to call when she gets through her tenure review, and we say good-bye.

Goth Chick takes off, and I have the bathroom to myself. I don't waste any time digging Glass' card from the trashcan of my bag and dialing his number. The secretary answers and gee, what a surprise, a high-up dude like Glass is busy and unavailable to talk to a peon like me. She puts me through to his voice mail and tells me to leave a message.

“Hi, Dr. Glass,” I say to the machine. “This is Faith Flores. I met you the other day.” I jog his memory about my mother, and then say, “So, it turns out my mom had a genetic form of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. There are a few things I don't understand, though, and since you're an expert in the disease, I was hoping I could ask you a few questions.” I leave my phone number and hang up, but I don't leave the stall, my safe haven from the watchful eyes and burning ears minding the halls and trolling for gossip.

There's one more person to talk to. I'm not sure what he'd know about the disease, but he is a doctor and he's been part of this, so I figure it's worth a try. I punch the number for the meth clinic. When Veronica answers, I tell her I'd like to speak to Dr. Wydner.

“You and about a hundred other people,” she says. “But ya'll can't ‘cause he's out on family leave.”

“Family leave? Is it about his daughter?”

“Normally that sort of information's confidential, but the doc asked us to let people know since it'll be a while before he's back.” There's a brief silence, and then she says, “She died.” Another silence, and then, “I can take a message.”

I rest my head against the plastic sidewall of the stall and remember the father-daughter routine in Dr. Wydner's office. “Just tell him Faith Flores called,” I say. “He'll know who I am.”

“I will,” Veronica promises, and after taking my phone number she hangs up.

For some reason, more than anything that's happened in the past few days, Dr. Wydner and his loss bring all the pain I've been keeping down rushing to the surface. At first it's one tear, but then another falls, and another and before I know it, I'm doubled over, clutching my stomach, hardly able to catch my breath. My chest heaves and snot drips onto my chin, but this time I don't try and hold it in or hide from my grief. I open the floodgates and let the feelings gush, a full-on emotional deluge.

The tears leave me eroded, a battered landscape, and soon I can't cry anymore. I stumble out of the bathroom in a wobbly daze and walk straight into Jesse.

“Ahh, crap. Geez, Jesse,” I say, wiping my nose with my sleeve. “Can't you give a girl some space?”

“No. Not when you disappear for half a class, or should I say for a whole week. You don't return my calls. You won't look at me. You've been avoiding me and—” He stops himself when he notices how I look, which I'm guessing from his expression isn't so hot. “What's wrong? Are you sick? Did something happen?”

I steel myself not to answer. At that moment Chip Walker strolls by and calls out to me.

“Hey, Stoner!” He winks and lifts his hand to give me the high five. The hand and wink are meant as compliments, an invitation to some sort of insiders club, but I shoot him a fierce look that says “eat shit and die.” I'm not one of them. I'm not one of anybody.

“Bitch,” he mutters and keeps walking.

Before I can react, Jesse's on Chip's back with his arms locked around Chip's gorilla neck. Jesse's half Chip's size, but he has the element of surprise in his favor and for a moment he hangs off Chip like a lion hanging off a wildebeest. Chip grunts and with a strong shake of his shoulders, drops Jesse to the ground.

“Faggot,” Chip mumbles under his breath and struts off to find someone else to harass.

Jesse leaps to his feet ready for more action, but I grab his arm. “Ignore him. The guy's got an IQ of like three. Give it a rest.”

Chip rounds the corner. Jesse breaks free of my grip. For a second I think he's going to go after Chip, but he just kicks a locker and lets out a string of creative expletives starting with the word
mother
.

I fiddle with the bathroom pass, unsure what to say. “Are…you okay?” I finally stammer, fully aware of the lameness of the question. “You didn't have to do that for me.”

“You're welcome.” He flashes me a dark look and slaps dust off his butt. “You can pay me back. Come.”

He drags me down the hall and down a flight of steps to the first-floor auditorium where the stage is set for the production of
Romeo and Juliet,
the tale of star-crossed lovers. The auditorium is empty. Dress rehearsal isn't until the evening, so we have the place to ourselves. I sink into a front row seat. Jesse hops up onto the stage.

“I'm Romeo. You're Juliet,” he says, looking up to the balcony of his beloved with his hand over his heart. It's meant as a joke, some way to blow off steam, but I think of Moneybags, of Tia, of Doc, and I don't laugh. Jesse and I aren't from rival families, but still, our worlds are totally different. We might as well belong to feuding clans.

After a few minutes of messing with the set and spewing various incomplete lines of Shakespeare, Jesse hops off the stage and plops onto the piano bench. I feel him watching me.

“Tell me what's going on,” he says.

“Nothing,” I mumble, keeping my eyes trained on a piece of neon-pink bubble gum stuck to the floor.

“You're lying. You're up to something, and you're not telling me.”

“What, like you tell me everything?”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

I look up and in a snide, mocking voice say, “I know the Harvard department of English offers a well-rounded program of all the classics, so I'm sure if I'm accepted I'll broaden my perspective.”

For a second Jesse looks confused, but then his lips tighten and the usual warmth in his eyes disappears. “You were spying on me?”

“No. Well, yes actually.”

Jesse runs a hand across his mouth. He stares at me like I'm a stranger, and it's this look more than anything that kills me.

“Why didn't you come over?” His voice is soft, tender even. I wish he'd yell at me. Anger is easier. I know how to put up a good fight and pretend not to care. “I would've wanted to see you. I would've wanted you there.”

More than anything I want to believe this is true, but believing requires hope, and I've been burned by hope far too many times to get high on that drug again. Hope is worse than heroin. Instead I go for mean.

“You were doing such a nice job of ass kissing and being a two-faced hypocrite, I didn't want to get in the way. You have to make a good impression you know.”

“Come on, Faith. That's not fair. You don't understand. I—”

“That's the thing. I do understand, Jesse,” I say, cutting him off. “Face it. Your life is totally different than mine. You have the Doc MD, PhD gene. I have the junkie one. You have Harvard. I have the community college. It's only a matter of time before real gets dull.”

Jesse doesn't say anything. He just starts tinkering with the piano keys, punching out a one-fingered rendition of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” “Doc made me start taking lessons when I was six,” he says, running through the do-re-mi scale. “I hated it. My sister, Stacy, she's really good. She can sing, too.” He plays a few notes that sound like the opening to something boring and classical and then, without warning, his fist comes crashing down on the keys in a loud, discordant sound that makes me jump. “When I'm with you I feel…” He stops and searches for the right word. “Confident,” he finally says, “like I know who I am and what I want. But when I'm at home it all goes to shit. I guess I'm just tired of fighting.”

“Then stop fighting. Be yourself and stop trying to impress people. It's boring.”

“I'm working on it,” he says and slumps over the keyboard.

I'm figuring out the wording for a speech, which starts with something eloquent like, “You're never going to get what you want if you don't stop being such a lame-ass wuss,” when Jesse sits up and for the first time in days, our eyes really meet.

We don't speak, but we don't need to. The eye contact cuts through all the crap, leaving something deep and wordless hanging in the air between us. I know I have to stay away from Jesse to keep him out of danger, but I can't lie to myself anymore and pretend I don't care about him.

Jesse scoots the piano bench closer to me so our knees bump, and his fingertips graze mine. The touch is so soft it's barely more than an energy, a prickle of current, but the nerve endings in my fingers go crazy, and I think of the butterfly effect, how the smallest occurrence can change the course of the universe.

I close my eyes and let my universe be changed.

Jesse traces circles on my palm, tickling my skin with his feather-light touch. Just as our fingers lock, my phone rings. I should ignore the obnoxious marimba ring tone, but the reminder of the outside world has already broken the spell.

I pull back my hand and answer.

“Hi, Faith,” a troubled voice says. “It's Dr. Wydner. I got your message. I need to talk to you.”

“What about?”

“In person. The phone's too risky. They might be listening.”

I turn from Jesse and press my cell to my ear. “What are you talking about? Who might be listening?”

“Meet me tonight. At the clinic. Seven o'clock.” He doesn't wait for my answer. “Don't use the front door. Call me on this number when you get here. I'll tell you where to go.”

The line goes dead before I can say anything else.

Jesse shoots to his feet. “Who was that?” he demands.

“Nobody,” I mumble, staring at the red
Call Ended
words on the screen.

“Then why are you shaking?”

I look down. He's right. My hands are shaking. Bastards. Totally against my will they're giving me away. I jam my hands under my armpits and study my feet.

“It was my aunt,” I lie, whatever soul-mate connection we were having a minute ago already light years away. “Something happened…to Felix.”

“Felix?”

“Yeah. Her cat. He…ate chocolate and he's having some kind of seizure thing. She's freaking out. I've gotta go help her. She loves that cat. He's like…the child she never had. Well, I guess I'm like the child she never had, but…so is the cat.” Stop rambling, Faith. Shut up and get going. “So, I have to go…to the vet. She needs me. So, yeah, I'll be going.”

“Faith,” Jesse says, reaching for my hand again. “I—”

“Forget it,” I whisper, pulling back from his touch. “Please.”

I push past Jesse and race up the aisle. He calls after me, but I don't hear what he says.

The door is already swinging shut behind me.

Twenty

At six that evening, I scribble a note to Aunt T telling her I've gone to the library to study, then take off to meet Dr. Wydner. By the time I reach the corner of Twenty-third and Jefferson, the smaller shops have been gated and put to rest for the night. The only light flickers from the distant skyscrapers that puncture the skyline. I'm not sure if it's my nerves projecting onto the environment or the environment messing with my nerves, but something tells me to turn back. I push away the thought and punch Dr. Wydner's number.

“Are you here?” he blurts before I can say hello.

“I'm out front.”

“Did anyone follow you?”

“What? No…I don't think so.” I shudder and look over my shoulder suddenly paranoid that someone is watching me from behind one of those blackened windows.

“Good. Come around the west side. By the parking lot. There's a back door in the alley. I'll meet you there.”

I cross the empty parking lot and step into the alley. Steam rises from a vent, carrying with it a sour smell like bad breath. I cover my mouth and nose with my hand as I hurry toward the sliver of light where Dr. Wydner waits in the doorway. His appearance has taken a dive since I saw him a week ago. His perfectly coiffed hair has gone flat. Dark circles swell beneath his eyes, and there's a papery, washed out look to his weathered face. He seizes my wrist and pulls me into the clinic.

“This way,” he grumbles. He hurries through a small room lined with shelves of medications, glass beakers, vials and syringes, then through a door leading to the nurse's station, and finally down a corridor, lit only by the glowing red of the exit sign at the opposite end.

When we reach his office, he lets go of my arm and scurries into the room. I stop at the door. The pictures of his daughter are gone. The drawers of his file cabinet are open. Papers litter his desk, and a big brown duffle bag sits on the floor.

“Are you going someplace?”

Instead of answering, he hands me a notebook-size yellow envelope. “Take this. It'll explain.”

I reach for the envelope. “Explain what?”

“It was too risky to put in the mail,” he says, evading my question again. “Don't tell anyone you have it. It isn't safe.”

“What's—”

He silences me with a wave of his hand. “I don't have all the answers. There wasn't time. The doctor knows I'm suspicious and that I have information. I have to get out of here.” I try to interrupt, but he keeps talking. “You can figure out the rest. Go home. Look at what's in there and then go to the police. I can't go to them after what I've done.”

“What did you do?” I ask, my voice rising, a hard chill trembling down my spine. “You're not making sense. What doctor? What information? Why are you giving this to me?”

“You remind me of my daughter,” he says, moving on to the next subject like a rambling mad man, and for a moment I think that's all this is, the delusions of a lunatic, and I've been snared in his web because something about me reminds him of his loss. “She had brown eyes, too, and you're smart like she was. I can tell.” He dumps the contents from a drawer into his duffle bag and yanks open another with an erratic jerk of his hand. The light from his desk lamp slices his face into shadowy angles. “I knew something wasn't right when I took this job, but I was paid not to ask questions. I needed that treatment for Heather. But after you came to see me and the second patient died, I couldn't ignore it any longer.”

“Ignore what?” I plead. “Is this about side effects?”

“I did it for my daughter,” he repeats, deaf to my question. “But now she's dead, and I don't care about their drug or their money anymore.” He stops talking and looks at me as if seeing me for the first time. “I'm sorry about your mother.”

“What the hell is going on?” I explode in frustration. “You call me down here and mumble all this—”

“Shh!” He freezes like a mouse in the shadow of an owl and puts his finger to his lips. “Did you hear that?”

“No,” I whisper, my gut knotting with fear. “I didn't hear anything.”

“There it is again.”

This time I do hear it. The clang of metal on metal. A door being forced open. Footsteps. Dr. Wydner turns off his lamp. We stand in the terrible pitch of night, waiting.

The sound of breaking glass shatters the silence.

In one swift move, Dr. Wydner lunges for me. He grabs my shoulders, throws me against a wall, and clamps his hand over my mouth before I can scream. My only thought is this was a trap and he's going to kill me. I beg with my eyes, even though I know he can't see me.

A second later he uncovers my mouth. I gasp for air.

“Stay here,” he hisses. “Don't move.”

“Wait!” I cry, but he's already gone.

I stand in the dark with my body pressed to the wall. When Dr. Wydner doesn't return, I clutch the envelope in one hand and feel my way through the dark with the other until I've crossed the room and reached the door. I peer out into the hallway and listen. I don't hear anything, so I slip out of the office into the eerie red glow and start inching down the hall.

I've taken about three steps when I hear murmurs.

“Dr. Wydner?” I call in a strangled voice.

No answer.

I try to call out again, but my voice sticks in my throat. My blood pounds in my ears. I scrape my palms along the rough textured wall and feel my way through the shadows. I'm half way to the waiting room when the murmurs turn to shouts. Something slams against a wall, and a second later Dr. Wydner runs out of the back room and races past the filing cabinets and computers toward me.

Faith!” he shouts. “Get—”

But before he can finish the thought, an explosion pierces the air. Shock waves ripple through my body. My eardrums split. It's not until I can hear again that I realize I'm screaming.

The white walls behind where Dr. Wydner stood are splattered red. Terror burns my lungs. I order my feet to move, but I've managed just one small step when a tall, lanky figure emerges from the back room and stops in the entrance to the nurses' station. The muted light from behind casts the form in silhouette. But even so, I know who it is.

The Rat Catcher raises a gun and points it at me.

I have just enough time to think how ironic it is for a junkie's daughter to get killed in a methadone clinic when the gun goes off. I fall to my knees, cocooned for the second time in temporary deafness.

As I grope my body, feeling for a bullet wound, I realize I'm not dead. I'm not even hurt. I'm not floating through a tunnel toward white light, and no deity intervened to save me—unless you consider Jesse a deity, because somehow he's come to be standing where the file cabinet had been. And somehow the file cabinet is on its side with all its drawers open. Plaster rains down around me from where the bullet hit the ceiling. The Rat Catcher is on the floor in front of the file cabinet, and behind him, in the doorway leading to the back room, Dr. Wydner's twisted body lies in a pool of blood.

My brain tries to catch up and connect the dots, but command central has a short circuit. My only thought is the gun. The Rat Catcher isn't holding it and neither is Jesse. As the Rat Catcher struggles to his feet, his burning eyes focused on me, one thing is perfectly clear: If he finds the gun, he won't miss his target a second time. The survival instinct every wild thing is born with kicks into action. I jump to my feet and do what millions of years of evolution have taught me: run.

The back room is the fastest way out, but the Rat Catcher is blocking the way.

“This way!” I shout, motioning Jesse to follow. It takes him about two seconds to reach my side.

We run down the hall and make it into the waiting room. I don't have to turn to know the Rat Catcher is behind us. His fingers claw the back of my head and grab my hair. I scream as he jerks me back toward him and locks a muscular arm around my neck. I struggle against the strength of him, biting, kicking, and thrashing any part of me that will move.

Jesse throws a punch, but his fists are nothing for the Rat Catcher. He drives his elbow into Jesse's stomach. Jesse goes down with a groan. The grip on my neck tightens and my mind goes dark, but for a tiny point of flickering light. I'm not sure if my eyes are open or closed, if I'm alive or dead, but the light gets brighter and I see my mother.
Keep fighting, Faith,
she tells me.
Don't give up
.

With sixteen years of hurt and anger fueling my muscles, I twist my shoulders as hard as I can. A scream like thunder rips out of me, and I yank free from the Rat Catcher's grip. In one fluid move, I raise my foot and blast the steel toe of my boot into his groin. The Rat Catcher's legs buckle and he drops without a sound.

I grab Jesse and pull him to his feet. We make it across the room before the Rat Catcher can get up and stop us. As we throw open the door, a deafening high pitch sound pierces the night. We've triggered the alarm. Any second the police will be here.

I glance over my shoulder as we flee, just in time to see the Rat Catcher rise and limp out of the clinic into the black night.